In the field of management of devices connected to a network, a technique (DHCP) that dynamically assigns a specific IP address to a device connected to a network based on information (e.g., MAC address of a network card) unique to the device is known.
When this technique is applied to a data center where a plurality of devices (e.g., rack servers) connected to a network are consolidated in one location for efficient parallel computation or for reduction in management cost of the devices, a relationship between the MAC addresses of the network-connected devices and IP addresses assigned to the devices is managed as one-to-one relationship as illustrated in FIG. 10.
Further, there is known a blade server that includes, as a hardware, a structure for an administrator of a data center to specify and manage the installation positions of the individual network-connected devices. The blade server uses, e.g., slot numbers 1 to 10 in order to specify, e.g., a device of the second slot of the first rack as illustrated in FIG. 11. The slot numbers 1 to 10 are assigned to serial ports 801 to 810, and the MAC addresses, IP addresses, and slot numbers are managed in association with one another in an information management table 820.
As a prior art relating to the present invention, a technique that assigns a MAC address encoded with a physical position to a device (refer to, e.g., Patent Document 1).    [Patent Document 1] International Publication Pamphlet No. 2004-533139
However, the blade server illustrated in FIG. 11 has special designs on blades (individual devices connected to a network) and a base chassis (chassis for mounting a plurality of blades) 830 and, therefore, it is difficult to make common use of the blade server and a general device. That is, the network-connected general device does not have a function like that of the blade server, and, at present, a function for managing a relationship between the general device and installation position thereof has not been provided.
Thus, in the case where a data center is built using the general devices, an administrator of the data center associates the position represented by the rack number and the slot of the rack with an IP address in a one-to-one correspondence and associates the IP address with information unique to the network-connected devices (MAC address of a network card is often used) in a one-to-one correspondence.
However, as illustrated in FIG. 12, if the information unique to the network-connected device, e.g., MAC address, is changed at the replacement time, the administrator needs to remove the network card retaining the MAC address from the device to be replaced so as to attach it to a new device, or needs to modify management information of a DHCP server, causing much trouble to the administrator.
Further, as illustrated in FIG. 13, if the network-connected devices are incorrectly installed at the replacement time of a plurality of the network-connected devices, a case may occur where a different device from one that the administrator intends to replace is erroneously replaced at the subsequent replacement time.